Pascal Part 9

It is easy, in one sense, to make out a case of scepticism against Pascal. He always writes strongly. There is pa.s.sion in all his thought.

He had a strong and deep sense of human weakness, and incapacity to attain the highest truth. He spoke of the philosophy of Descartes without respect. With most of the Port Royalists, indeed, he seems to have concurred in the Cartesian doctrine of automata, {176} strangely revived in our day by Professor Huxley. But he repudiated the notion of "subtle matter," and even spoke of it with contempt (_dont il se moquait fort_). "He could not bear," his niece tells us, in a pa.s.sage often quoted and emphasised, "the Cartesian manner of explaining the formation of all things." "I cannot forgive Descartes," he said. "He would willingly in all his philosophy have done without G.o.d, if he could; but he could not get on without letting him give the world a fillip to set it agoing: after that, he has nothing more to do with G.o.d." Whether he had studied Descartes or not, he evidently did not share the enthusiasm of Arnauld and others for his philosophy. He even spoke of it as "useless, uncertain, and troublesome-nay, as ridiculous." {177} He has added, in that brusque, rapid, forceful style characteristic of many of his Thoughts, that "he did not think the whole of philosophy worth an hour's trouble." Again: "To set light by philosophy is the true philosophy."

When we look at such expressions, and many others, it is not to be wondered at that Pascal has been accused of scepticism. As he could not forgive Descartes, so Cousin cannot forgive him for his depreciation of Descartes. One who saw nothing in Cartesianism or philosophy in general beyond what these rash sentences, freshly restored in all their audacity, declare, could be nothing but an "enemy of all philosophy."

It is impossible not to feel that there is some ground for this accusation, and that, if we were to draw our knowledge of Pascal merely from such pa.s.sages, Cousin makes out something of a case against him.

But many other pa.s.sages, hardly less emphatic, must make every candid reader pause before he comes to any definite conclusion on the subject, if it is necessary to come to such a conclusion at all. It must never be forgotten that we have nowhere the complete mind of Pascal; that it was of the very nature of thoughts rapidly dashed upon paper-as the very form of many we have quoted clearly indicates they were-to be one-sided and often extravagant. Pascal, of all men, is not to be measured by his strong expressions. His intellectual nature, while profound, was narrow and intense. He put his whole soul into what moved him for the time; and a certain excess of pa.s.sionate intellectual emotion evidently speaks in some of the most striking of the 'Pensees.' We may imagine how in some-perhaps in many-cases they would have been toned down had he lived to revise and refashion them into a harmonious whole. That interior elaboration,-"a kind of second creation of genius," as M. Faugere says-which no one else may venture upon,-would undoubtedly have come from his own masterly hand, if it had been given him to bring fragment to fragment, and to fit them together into a complete fabric. It would be a hard thing to judge any student, and especially a student like Pascal, by the scattered notes of his library table; and precious as these fragments are, we must remember that this is their character, and nothing else.

The fact that we now have them in all their native _hardiesse_ makes this caution not the less but all the more necessary.

In pa.s.sing on to consider more particularly Pascal's philosophical and religious att.i.tude, we shall see more fully the bearing of these remarks.

Pascal, in point of fact, embraces many points of view; and, if he leans sometimes to scepticism, he sees also the strong side of what he calls dogmatism or rational philosophy. The very exaggerations of his language, now on this side and now on that, show that he himself is more than either, as his own words bear. "It is necessary," he says, "to have three qualities-those of the Pyrrhonist, of the geometrician (the dogmatist), and of the humble Christian. These unite with and attemper one another, so that we doubt when we should, we aim at certainty when we should, and we submit when we should." He certainly thought that he had found a surer road to truth than either Dogmatism or Pyrrhonism. Whether he succeeded in doing so will appear as we proceed.

The famous conversation with De Saci, when he entered Port Royal, must be taken as the chief key to Pascal's own philosophical att.i.tude. There is nowhere in any of the Thoughts so complete an exhibition of his point of view; and all the editors who have most entered into Pascal's spirit-Sainte-Beuve, Faugere, and Havet alike-have recognised its importance. It is really, as Havet says, of the nature of an introduction to the 'Pensees.'

In this conversation Pascal signalises what he believes to be the two great opposing systems of human philosophy at all times; the rational, dogmatic, or Stoical, on the one hand-the sceptical, or Epicurean, on the other. He takes Epictetus as the representative of the one; Montaigne as the representative of the other. In depicting dogmatism at other times, he seems to have Descartes especially in view; but in speaking of scepticism and Pyrrhonism (which is his own expression), it is always Montaigne that he has before him. Montaigne is Pyrrhonist _par excellence_; and undoubtedly the famous Essays had greatly fascinated Pascal, like many others in his generation. He was constantly drawn to them as embodying one, and that a deep, phase of his own experience. He felt his own thought expressed in many pages of Montaigne, and had that favour for the Essays that every thoughtful man has for the book that makes his own experience alive, and brings it clearly before him. But he has, at the same time, made plainly intelligible his own differences from Montaigne, and marked with his usual boldness the limitations of his thought. If Pascal is Pyrrhonist, he is certainly not Pyrrhonist after the manner of Montaigne, deeply as he responds to many of the notes of the Essays, and at times seems to make them his own.

The conversation with De Saci took place in 1654, when Pascal first went to Port Royal des Champs, and De Saci became his spiritual director. We owe its preservation to Fontaine, from whose ma.n.u.script 'Memoirs' it was extracted, and first published in 1728 by Des Molets. After all the labour of Faugere, Havet believes himself to have given for the first time the correct text of the conversation from the original print of Des Molets, based on Fontaine's ma.n.u.scripts, rather than from the text of the 'Memoirs' as afterwards published. Fontaine describes in his _nave_ manner the impression made by Pascal upon De Saci, and how the brilliancy of power which had charmed all the world could not be hidden within the shades of Port Royal. Ignorant of the Fathers of the Church, he had found by his own mental and spiritual penetration the very truths to be met with in them; and De Saci seemed to see another St Augustine before him in the wonderful talk of the gifted penitent. It was his practice in dealing with his penitents to adapt his conversation to their peculiar powers. If he spoke with M. Champagne, for example, he talked with him of painting. If he saw M. Hamon, he inquired about the art of medicine.

If it was the surgeon of the place, he had something to say of surgery.

All was designed to lead the thoughts from all human things up to G.o.d.

With Pascal, therefore, it was philosophy upon which his conversation fell, to try the depths of his mind, and see what special direction he needed. "Pascal told him that the two books most familiar to him were Epictetus and Montaigne, and he lavished great praise on both. M. de Saci had always wished to read these two authors, and asked M. Pascal to explain them fully."

"Epictetus," said Pascal, "is one of the philosophers of the world who have best known the duties of man. Above all things, he would have man regard G.o.d as his chief object-to be persuaded that He governs all things with righteousness-to submit to Him cordially, and to follow Him willingly, as having made all things with perfect wisdom. Such a disposition would stay all complaints and murmurs, and prepare the human mind to bear quietly the most troublesome events. 'Never say,' he observes (Enchirid. 11), 'I have lost that; say rather, I have restored it. My son is dead; I have surrendered him. My wife is dead; I have given her up.' And so of every other good. . . . While its use is permitted, regard it as a good belonging to others, as a traveller does in an inn. You should not wish,' he adds, 'that things be as you desire, but you should desire them to be as they are.' . . . It is your duty to play well the part a.s.signed to you, but to choose the part is the act of Another. Have always death before your eyes, and the evils which are least supportable, and you would never think meanly of anything, nor desire anything in excess. He shows in a thousand ways what is the duty of man. He wishes him to be humble, to conceal his good resolutions, especially in their beginnings, that he may carry them out in secret.

Nothing is so ruinous to them as publicity. He never ceases to repeat that the whole duty and desire of man ought to be to acknowledge the will of G.o.d, and to follow it.

"Such were the lights of this great mind, who has so well understood the duties of man. I venture to say, that he would have deserved to be adored if he had only known as well human weakness; but in order to do this, he must have been G.o.d Himself. Mere man as he was, after having so well explained human duty, he loses himself in the presumption of human capacity. He avers that G.o.d has given to every man the means of acquitting himself of all his obligations; that such means are always within his own power, that happiness is to be sought by things within our reach, since G.o.d has given us them for this very end. He points out in what our freedom consists: goods, life, esteem are not in our power, and therefore do not lead to G.o.d; but none can force the mind to believe what is false, nor the will to love that which will make it miserable. These two powers are therefore free; and by these we can render ourselves perfect-know G.o.d perfectly, love Him, obey Him, please Him-vanquish all vices, acquire all virtues, and so make ourselves holy, and the fellows of G.o.d. These principles, truly diabolic in their pride, lead to other errors-such as that the soul is a portion of the Divine substance, that grief and death are not evils, that we may kill ourselves when we are in such trouble that we may believe G.o.d summons us, etc.

"As for Montaigne-of whom you wish me also, my dear sir, to speak-being born in a Christian country, he makes profession of the Catholic religion, and so far there is nothing peculiar about him.

But in the search for a system of morals dictated by reason without the light of faith, he has to lay down his principles on this supposition, and to consider man apart from revelation. He conceives things in such a universal uncertainty that doubt itself is seized with uncertainty, and doubts whether it doubts. His scepticism returns upon itself in a perpetual circle without repose, opposing equally those who maintain that all is uncertain, and those who maintain that nothing is, so utterly indisposed is he to any fixity.

In this doubt which doubts itself, and this ignorance which is ignorant of itself, is to be found the essence of his thought. He cannot express it by any positive term; for if he was to say that he doubts, he betrays himself by making it certain that he doubts; and this being formally against his intention, he can only explain himself by an interrogation. Not wishing to say, I do not know, he can only ask, What do I know? He has made this his device, putting it under a pair of balances, which, weighted in each scale by a contradiction, hangs in perfect equilibrium. In other words, he is pure Pyrrhonist. This is the point round which turn all his discourses and all his essays. This is the only thing which he leaves fixed, although he may not always keep it before him. . . .

"It is in this humour, fluctuating and variable as it is, that he combats with an invincible firmness the heretics of his time, who a.s.sumed to know the exclusive sense of Scripture. From the same point of view he thunders vigorously against the horrible impiety of those who dare to be certain that there is no G.o.d! He attacks them especially in the 'Apology for Raymond de Sebonde.' Having voluntarily set aside revelation, and abandoned themselves to their natural light-all faith set aside-he asks them on what authority they, who know not the essential reality of anything, dare to judge of that Sovereign Being who is infinite by His very definition. He demands upon what principles they rest, and presses them to point them out. He examines all that they bring forward, and so searches them by his wonderful penetration as to show the hollowness of what pa.s.ses for the most clear and established truths. He inquires if the soul knows anything whatever-if it knows itself; whether it is substance or accident, body or spirit; what is each of these things, and if there is anything belonging to some order different from either; if the soul knows its own body; if it knows what matter is, or can distinguish the innumerable varieties of body produced from matter; how it can reason if it is material, and how it can be united to a special body, and feel its pa.s.sions if it be spiritual. When did it begin to be, with the body or before, and if it ends with it or not? . . . . The ideas of G.o.d and truth are inseparable, and if the one is or is not, if the one is certain or uncertain, the other is necessarily the same. Who knows if the common sense (_le sens commun_) which we take as a judge of the truth is really this, designed for such a purpose? Who knows what truth is, and how can we be sure of having it without knowing it? Who knows even what Being is, since it is impossible to define it; and in trying to do so, it is necessary to presuppose the very idea itself, and say _it is_? . .

"I confess, sir, I might look with joy upon the manner in which the author invincibly crumples up proud reason with its own arms. I could love with my whole heart the minister of so mighty a vengeance if, as a faithful disciple of the Church, he had followed its moral guidance. But he acts, on the contrary, like a pagan, concluding that we ought to abandon care for others and dwell in peace, gliding lightly over such subjects lest we lose ourselves in them, and taking that to be true and good which at first appears to be so. This is why he follows everywhere the evidence of the senses and the notions of the community. . . . In this manner, he says, there is nothing extravagant in his conduct. He does as others do. Whatever they do in the foolish thought that they are following the true good, he does from another principle, that as the probabilities (_vraisemblances_) are equally on one side and the other, so example and convenience carry the day with him. He mounts his horse like any one else-not as a philosopher-because the horse allows him to do so, but without thinking there is any right in the matter, and not knowing whether the horse, on the contrary, may not be ent.i.tled to make use of him.

He puts constraint to himself in order to shun certain vices; and even guards marriage faithfully, merely on account of the disorder which would otherwise follow. . . .

"I cannot dissemble that in reading Montaigne, and comparing him with Epictetus, I find in them the two greatest defenders of the most celebrated sects of the world, who profess to follow reason rather than revelation. We must follow one or other. Either there is a G.o.d and a Sovereign Good, or this is uncertain, and all is uncertain,-whether there is any true good or not. . . .

"The error in both is, in not seeing that the present state of man differs from that in which he was created. The one, observing only the traces of his primitive grandeur, and ignoring his corruption, has treated human nature as if it were whole, without any need of a Redeemer-this leads to the height of pride; the other, sensible of man's present misery, and ignorant of his original dignity, treats human nature as necessarily weak and irreparable, and thus, in despair of attaining any true good, plunges it into a depth of baseness." {185}

These two states, Pascal goes on to argue, must be taken together before the truth can be reached. Apart, they give a false picture of man; and generate on the one hand pride, on the other hand immorality. It is only the Gospel which unites them, in a right manner, "by a divine art." It brings together the opposites, and explains, by a wondrous, truly heavenly way, how they may coexist, not as attributes of the same subject, as systems of human philosophy have made them, but as different endowments-the one of nature, the other of grace. "Behold the new and surprising union which G.o.d alone could teach and alone accomplish, and which is only an image and an effect of the ineffable union of two natures in the one person of the G.o.d-man."

In these latter sentences-which we have been obliged, for the sake of brevity, to compress-we have the suggestion of Pascal's philosophy both of human nature and of Divine revelation. He recurs over and over again to the same idea, that man is great and yet weak, full of capacity and yet miserable, and that the Gospel alone holds the key to this enigma of human nature. This, more than any other, is the pervading thought round which all the others gather.

"This twofoldness (_duplicite_)," he says, "is so visible, that some have conceived that man must have two souls-a simple subject appearing to them incapable of such and so sudden variations; an immeasurable presumption on the one hand, a horrible abas.e.m.e.nt on the other. In spite of all the miseries which cleave to us, and hold us, as it were, by the throat (_nous tiennent a la gorge_), there is within us an irrepressible instinct which exalts us. The greatness of man is so visible that it may be deduced from his very misery.

His very miseries prove his greatness. They are the miseries of a great lord, of a dethroned sovereign. The greatness of man consists in his knowledge of his misery. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. . . . He is miserable-the fact is beyond question; but he is great in knowing it." {186}

Again, reverting to the very same line of thought, as in the conversation with De Saci-

"Philosophers have propounded sentiments not at all adapted to the twofold condition of man. They have sought to inspire emotions of pure greatness; but this is not man's condition. They have sought on the other hand to inspire sentiments of mere baseness; but neither is this man's condition. Man needs abas.e.m.e.nt, not of nature, however, but of penitence; not that he remain degraded, but that he may rise to greatness. He needs to feel within him the emotion of greatness,-not of merit, however, but of grace. . . . Two sects have sprung out of this conflict between reason and sense in man. The one, in renouncing pa.s.sion, has aspired to divinity; the other, in renouncing reason, has sunk to mere brutality. . . . The principles of the respective philosophies are so far true-Pyrrhonism, Stoicism, Atheism even. But the conclusions are false, because the opposite principles are equally true. . . . We labour under an incapacity of demonstrating all things invincible to Dogmatism. We have an innate idea of truth invincible to all Pyrrhonism. . . . Nature confounds the Pyrrhonist, and reason the Dogmatist;"-

or, as the pa.s.sage was originally written,-

"We cannot be Pyrrhonists without violating nature; we cannot be Dogmatists without renouncing nature." {187}

These and other pa.s.sages sufficiently show Pascal's relation to philosophy, and to Pyrrhonism in particular. He is no enemy of philosophy, but he certainly does not believe it capable of explaining the riddle of human nature. He is so far from being a Pyrrhonist in the sense of resting on Pyrrhonism, that he seeks to mount on its shoulders to a higher truth. Nay, he clearly recognises that man has an inborn faculty for truth which not all the contradictions of his experience can belie. We may and must doubt as to many things; but there are principles lying at the root of human life which are invincible to all doubt. We can demonstrate many things; but there are natural realities beyond our power of demonstration. On the side of sense, all things seem to fluctuate and waver in uncertainty; on the side of mere intellect we soon cross the limit of our powers. But Humanity is more than either sense or intellect. There is, as he believes, a primitive endowment of spiritual instinct in man, which looks forth upon a higher world of reality.

Repeatedly, and in various applications, he recurs to these three radical sides or elements of Humanity; "the sensible-the intellectual, or the exercise of reason left to itself-and the spiritual or divine." Pascal despairs of a philosophy which is either a mere generalisation of sensible experience, or which aims at demonstrating everything from a purely rational point of view; but he is so far from resting in mere intellectual doubt, that he tries to find a ground for human cert.i.tude in a deeper stratum of Humanity than either sense or what he calls "reason."

Neander and others have vindicated for him a supreme position as a philosopher on this very account. With them he is not only no sceptic, but he stands forth among the men who have specially vindicated the claims of Humanity as endowed with the divine attributes of "spirit" and "will"-the men of "full mental healthiness" who have recognised in man a free spiritual life no less than a life of sense and intellect. This may or may not be. But the mere fact that Pascal has aimed at a deeper ground of cert.i.tude, whether he has made it clear or not, and whether or not he has spoken with undue depreciation of other sources of knowledge, should be enough to vindicate him from the charge of even philosophical scepticism. In the following pa.s.sage he has explained his views more fully. More than any other, perhaps, it may be taken as the text of his philosophy.

"We discover truth," he says, "not only by reasoning, but by feeling (_le cur_); and it is in this latter manner that we discover first principles-and in vain does reasoning, which has no share in their production, try to combat these principles. The Pyrrhonists, who attempt this, labour in vain. We know that we are not deceived, however incapable we may be of proving so by any power of reasoning.

This incapacity only demonstrates the weakness of our reasoning faculty, and not the incert.i.tude of all our knowledge, as they pretend. Nay, our knowledge of first principles, such as the ideas of _s.p.a.ce_, _time_, _motion_, _number_, is as certain as any obtained by reasoning. It is, in fact, upon such conclusions of feeling and instinct that Reason must ultimately rest and base all its arguments.

We _feel_ that there are three dimensions in s.p.a.ce, and that numbers are infinite; and reason hence demonstrates that there are no two square numbers the one of which is double the other. Principles are felt, propositions deduced, and both with cert.i.tude, although in different ways. And it is as absurd for the 'reason' to demand of the 'heart' proofs of its first principles before a.s.serting them, as it would be for the 'heart' to demand of the 'reason' a _feeling_ of all propositions that she demonstrates before accepting them. This weakness, therefore, should only serve to humble reason in its desire to make itself judge of everything, but by no means to moderate the cert.i.tude of our conviction, as if reason were alone capable of instructing us." {189}

There may be something to object to in Pascal's mode of expression in the above pa.s.sage. Cousin has made the most of his confusion of "reason" and "reasoning"-"la raison" and "le raisonnement." The expression "le cur,"

by which he designates the higher faculty of intuition, may be inadequate and misleading-complex and disturbing in its a.s.sociation. But withal, his att.i.tude in favour of a ground of certainty in human knowledge is unmistakable. So far he is not only not with Montaigne, but he is clearly against him. The rights of nature, as he says, rise up against the Pyrrhonist. They make themselves good. And however strongly Pascal may draw the picture of human weakness, and all the contrarieties which our nature encloses, he does not mean by this to strike at the roots of all knowledge, and leave man a prey to helpless doubt. He means merely to shake the throne of rational security, and to show that no conclusions of mere philosophy can reach all the exigencies of man's condition. His a.n.a.lysis of human nature is the a.n.a.lysis of a moralist, and not of a psychologist or rational philosopher. He looks at man always as a spiritual being. It is his spiritual capacity which alone makes him great, and yet intensifies all the lower contradictions of his nature.

It is "thought alone which makes man's greatness." A man can be conceived "without hands or feet or head, but not without thought."

"The possession of the earth would not add to my greatness. As to s.p.a.ce, the universe encloses and absorbs me as a mere point, but by thought I embrace it. . . . Man is but a reed, the feeblest of created things-but one possessing thought (_un roseau pensant_). It needs not that the universe should arm itself to crush him. A breath, a drop of water, suffices for his destruction. But were the whole universe to rise against him, man is yet greater than the universe, since man _knows_ that he dies. He knows the universe prevails against him. The universe knows nothing of its power."

{190}

It is hardly possible to speak more eloquently of the dignity of human nature. And if it is the same voice which speaks in such pathetic or it may be harsh tones of human weakness and misery, and the disproportions of our natural life, it is the very consciousness of greatness that inspires the consciousness of misery. Looking from such a height of human dignity, he sees all the depths of human baseness. It is this higher spirit which consecrates Pascal as a moralist. Has he rebuked the presumptions of humanity? has he called upon proud reason to humble itself? has he gibed human philosophy, and even gloried for a moment in the contradictions of empiricism? It is never that he may laugh at man, or that he may rest in the mere contemplation of his follies or extravagances, but because he himself profoundly realised the height and the depth of his being-the grandeur to which he could rise, or to which G.o.d could raise him, and the baseness and miseries to which he could sink. Doubtless, as with all concentrated and meditative natures, Pascal delights to dwell on the weaker and gloomier side of humanity. This was partly the result of his Jansenist leanings, but mainly it came from his own intense reality of feeling. It was bred of his austere sadness of heart, and is found to run as a note of profound const.i.tutional melancholy through all his letters, and all his life, as well as his Thoughts. In the view of eternity, and of the awful issues involved in religion, the common life and pursuits of man seemed to him not only frivolous, but criminal. He looked forth, therefore, on this common life with eyes not only of tears, but of displeasure. He seemed even at times to derive something of stern satisfaction from its very follies and absurdities. But this is only the temporary mood of the profound moralist touched to his heart by pangs that he cannot resist. His true view of life is never cynical,-but always grave, if bitter-and hopeful, if stern.

Pascal's supposed philosophical scepticism admits of something of the same explanation. He has not only no wish to disturb the fundamental verities of human thought, but he endeavours to fix them in an ineradicable instinct or universal "sense," against which all the a.s.saults of Pyrrhonism must break. But the while he is himself deeply moved by the perplexities of human reason. Although no Pyrrhonist in thought, he knows too well in experience the depths of Pyrrhonism. His mind is one of those to be met with in all ages, which, while it clings to faith, and is even strong in the a.s.sertion of faith's claims, is yet in certain moments utterly distracted by doubt. Constantly searching the foundations of human knowledge,-sifting them as with lighted glance,-they seemed to him at times to crumble away before him. Nothing remained fixed to his piercing look. As few minds have experienced, he felt the awful darkness which encloses all mortal aspiration, and the keenest audacities of human speculation. The incapacities of human reason at such times overwhelmed him, and left him hopeless, or, still worse, in a half-derisive mood. And these moods, as well as his clearer and more elaborate thoughts, hastily transferred to paper, are found amongst his notes. It is quite impossible to vindicate his consistency, and it is not in the least necessary to do this, as already explained; while we feel bound to maintain that his higher mood is his true mood, and that the Pascal of the 'Pensees'-the veritable Pascal-is to be judged, not by his weakness but by his strength; by his moments of clear mental sanity and insight, and not by his moments of despair or of derisive mockery of all human philosophy.

This seems to us the true light in which to regard the famous wager-essay on the existence of G.o.d, which has been a scandal even to some of his greatest admirers. It is impossible to defend this essay on any principle of sound philosophy. Either there is a G.o.d or there is not.

Which side of the question shall we take? "Reason," he says, "cannot decide." The fact, he means, cannot be demonstrated according to his customary use of the word reason. But if it cannot, there must yet be a balance of reason, and proof on one side or the other. And the only fair and manly issue of such a question must be, On which side lies this balance? A valid theistic conclusion can be found in no other way, and least of all in any calculation of chances, or balance of self-interest.

And yet it is this last which Pascal has put forward with such prominence in this famous essay. "Wager," he says. "If you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that G.o.d exists. . . . On one side is an eternity of life, of infinite blessedness to be gained, and what you stake is finite. . . .

Our proposition is, that the finite is to be vested in a wager, in which there is an equal chance of gain and loss, and _infinitude to gain_."

The play was hardly worthy of Pascal, and the 'mystery of the game' could certainly never be unravelled in any such way. But not a few minds like Pascal's-with deep spiritual intuitions and yet a craving for scientific certainty constantly mocking these intuitions-have felt in a similar manner the hazard of the great question, and may have said to themselves, "We must take our stand, and this is the side which weighs in the balance. We can lose nothing; we may gain everything." The mood is not a lofty one, and it is no higher in Pascal than in any one else; but there are moments of terrible doubt, when the soul is so borne away on the surge of the sceptical wave that rises from the depth of all human speculation, that it can only cling to the Divine by an effort of will, and with something of the gamester's thought that this is the winning side! The thought may be shallow and poor in itself, but in such cases it comes not out of the shallows but out of the depths of a mind torn by distracting doubts in the face of the dreadful problems of life.

Out of the same depth of spiritual experience and trenchant moral a.n.a.lysis comes all that is true and valuable in his so-called 'Apology.'

That the 'Pensees' were more or less designed to form such an Apology-to be woven into the plan of a treatise in defence of the Christian religion-seems beyond doubt. He had himself, according to the statement of his nephew, unfolded such a plan to his friends, in a lengthened conversation about the year 1657 or 1659. They were charmed with the loftiness of his design, and listened to his exposition of it for two or three hours with unabated interest. He was to commence with an a.n.a.lysis of human nature, and to advance from the contemplation of its mysteries, obscurities, and perplexities, to the consideration of the various methods, philosophical and religious, by which reason had endeavoured to meet the difficulties of thought and life. After explaining the inconclusiveness and absurdities of these methods-represented by the diverse philosophies and religions of the world-he was to call attention to the Jewish religion, and the superiority which it presents to all others, both in the extraordinary circ.u.mstances of its history, and in the revelation which it gives of one G.o.d, Creator and Governor of the world, and of the origin of man-his primitive innocence and fall. The idea of the fall, which was a central one in all Pascal's thoughts, was to be fully expounded, in its own character and as "the source not only of whatever is most inexplicable in man's nature, but also of a mult.i.tude of things, external to him, of which he knows not the causes." From the fall he was to pa.s.s to the hopes of deliverance revealed in the Old Testament, and especially the lofty conception which it gives of G.o.d as a G.o.d of love, a feature peculiar to it, and "which he deemed the essence of true religion."

From such general considerations-of the nature of prolegomena or "preparation" for the reader's mind-he proceeded to furnish a brief view of "the positive proofs of the truths he wanted to establish,-proofs derived from the authenticity of the books of Moses, especially the miracles they record, the figures and types they embody." He then went on more at length to prove the truth of religion from prophecy, which he is represented as having studied deeply, and certain views of which, "of a nature wholly original," he explained with great clearness. Finally, "after going through the books of the Old Testament," he advanced to those of the New, "and deduced from them his crowning proofs of the truths of the Gospel." He began with Christ, whose divine mission he already supposed to be established by the argument from prophecy, and added additional force of evidence from His resurrection, His miracles, His doctrines, and the tenor of His life; then from the character and mission of the apostles; and lastly, from the style and manner of the New Testament books, and especially of the Gospels, "the mult.i.tude of miracles, martyrs, and the saints,"-in a word, from all "by which the Christian religion is so triumphantly established."

It is needless to say how imperfectly this design was ever accomplished; and no ingenuity of restoration can make of Pascal's apologetic plan anything but a ma.s.s of imperfect fragments. Yet he has left us a definite series of Thoughts on the Jewish religion, on Miracles, Figures, and Prophecy, and also on Jesus Christ and the general character of the Christian religion. In these Thoughts, it must be admitted, there is but little to reward our study in comparison with those of a more introductory and philosophical nature. Pascal's genius was in no degree historical, and but slightly critical-not to mention that the very idea of historical criticism had not emerged in his time, nor long afterwards.

While realising so profoundly the perplexities of human experience, he has no conception of the difficulties that beset historical tradition; nor do his habits of scientific investigation, and the natural severity and logical rigour of his mind, seem to have suggested to him any misgivings as to the prevalence of miraculous agency in the world. The perfect faith with which he accepted the "miracle" of the Holy Thorn is a sufficient indication of his state of mind in this respect, and how ready he was to accept evidence the very idea of which merely excites a smile of wonder in the modern mind.

It cannot be said, therefore, to be any matter of regret that Pascal did not live to complete the historical portion of his projected work,-what he seems himself, from the report of his friends, to have considered the main structure of the defence he intended to rear on behalf of the religion so dear to him. He expended his real strength on the portico to the designed temple. His genius fitted him to deal with this, and with this alone, in any adequate manner. His moral a.n.a.lysis, at once keen and veracious, enabled him not only to lay bare all the "disproportions" of humanity, but, moreover, to unfold the adaptation of Christianity as a spiritual system to meet and remedy these disproportions. This is the real "apologetic" work of the 'Pensees,' and the only one for which Pascal's mind pre-eminently fitted him. He sees in the Gospel a Divine Power which is capable of ministering to man's higher wants-a power of infinite compa.s.sion towards human weakness and misery, of infinite help for the one and remedy for the other. The Christian religion, according to him, alone "understands at once man's greatness and degradation, and the reason of both the one and the other." "It is equally important for man to know his capacity of being like G.o.d and his unworthiness of Him.

To know of G.o.d without knowing his misery, or to know his misery without knowing the Redeemer, who alone can deliver him from it, is alike dangerous. The one knowledge const.i.tutes the pride of the philosopher, the other the despair of the atheist. Man must therefore have the double experience, and so it has pleased G.o.d to reveal it. This the Christian religion does; in this it consists." Again: "Christ is the centre in which alone we find at once G.o.d and our misery. In Him alone we have a G.o.d whom we must approach without pride, and before whom we may yet bow without despair." In another and more lengthened pa.s.sage he brings the two ideas of human corruption and divine redemption closely together, the one as supplementary of the other, and expressly emphasises the perfection with which Christianity fits so to speak, into all the wards of the human enigma,-in comparison with every system of human philosophy.

"Without divine knowledge," he says, "what have men been able to do save to exalt themselves in the consciousness of their original greatness, or abase themselves in the view of their present weakness?

Unable to see the whole truth, they have never attained to perfect virtue. One cla.s.s considering nature as incorrupt, another as irreparable, they have been alternately the victims of pride or sensuality-the two sources of all vice. . . . If, in one case, they recognised man's excellence, they ignored his corruption; and so, in escaping indulgence, they lost themselves in pride. In the other case, in acknowledging his weakness they ignored his dignity, and, while escaping vanity, plunged into despair. Hence the diverse sects of Stoics and Epicureans, of Dogmatists and Academicians, etc. The Christian religion alone can reconcile these discrepancies and cure both evils, not by expelling the one by the other, according to the wisdom of this world, but by expelling both the one and the other by the simplicity of the Gospel. For it teaches the just that while it elevates them even to be partakers of the divine nature, they still carry with them in this lofty state the source of all their corruption, making them during life subjects of error, misery, death, and sin. At the same time, it proclaims to the most impious that they are capable of becoming partakers of a Redeemer's grace. By thus warning those whom it justifies, and consoling those whom it condemns, it tempers with just measure fear and hope, through the twofold capacity in all of grace and sin; so that it abases infinitely more than reason, yet without producing despair, and exalts infinitely more than natural pride, yet without puffing up,-plainly showing that it alone is exempt from all error and wrong, and possesses the power at once of instructing and correcting men.

Who, then, can withhold his belief in this revelation, or refuse to adore its celestial light? For is it not more clear than day that we feel in ourselves the ineffaceable traces of divine excellence? And it is equally clear that we experience every hour the effects of our fall and ruin. What, then, comes to us from all this chaos and wild confusion, in a voice of irresistible conviction, but the irrefragable truth of both those sides of humanity?" {199}

This pa.s.sage conveys very clearly at once the gist of Pascal's philosophy and the chief merit of his line of Christian apology. The two cannot be separated. They run constantly into one another. He was a Christian apologist in so far as he was a Christian philosopher; and those who reject his line of Christian defence, will also reject his whole mode of thought. To him the only solution of human perplexity in thought and life is Christ. He is the "object and centre of all things, in whom alone all contradictions are reconciled." This is the conclusion of his intelligence, and not of his despair. Whatever may be the traces of scepticism in his intellectual nature, it is doing him great injustice to represent his acceptance of Christianity as a mere refuge from uncertainty. He is a totally different man from Huet, with whom Cousin has ventured to compare him in this respect. He never dallies on the surface; mere traditionalism has but a slight hold of him. He is a Christian not because he has been taught Christianity, or because the Church as a divine inst.i.tution claims his allegiance. All these influences may have affected him, and given a turn to his mind; but they do not touch the essence of his thoughts. Anything he does say of the external claims of Christianity has but little weight. It is out of the depths of his own spiritual experience that his faith is born. It is a voice within him, a conflicting cry of weakness and aspiration going up everywhere from humanity, that find their answer in Christ. There is the enigma of man on the one side, to him otherwise hopeless, and Christ on the other, holding the keys of the enigma in His hand. The solution appeared to him perfect, according to his study and a.n.a.lysis of the problem-the twofoldness that he found in man, of divine dignity on the one hand, and frivolous, sensual degradation on the other. Both facts, he says, are equally clear and certain. Man's fall from a state of divine innocence alone explains them; and the Gospel alone recognises the one side as well as the other of human nature, and provides a Power capable of restoring its true balance and rectifying all its disorder.

He felt in himself the might of this power healing all the wounds of his own heart, and binding up the shreds of his Christian efforts "to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with G.o.d." Whether we agree with all his a.n.a.lyses, or recognise all the adaptations which he describes, it is impossible not to feel that they were living to him, and that he saw in Christianity not merely a refuge for the disappointed heart, but a true philosophy of life-the only "sure and sound philosophy," as Justin Martyr had found long before him.

It is in the same spirit that he writes in many of his later 'Pensees.'

Some of the pa.s.sages already quoted are in fact taken from the chapter "On the Christian Religion," which appears to have been intended to form one of the concluding chapters of his Apology. But he repeats over and over again the same strain-that the present condition of man is only intelligible in the light of the Christian revelation, and that this revelation alone answers to all man's necessities. Christ has not only proclaimed a higher truth to man, which man is bound to accept under penalties of default. This tone is also found sometimes, but comparatively seldom. The prevailing note is, that there is an admirable fitness between the two-the mysteries of human nature witnessing to the divine veracity of the Gospel, and the Gospel again holding the only key to these mysteries, and the only power of unravelling them and restoring them to their divine original. "Jesus Christ," he says, "is for all men; Moses for one people." "The knowledge of G.o.d without a knowledge of our misery produces pride; that of our misery without G.o.d leads to despair.